I’ve been saying this for years now: that wing chun is first and foremost a standup very close quarter striking art - which is why I’ve added some elements of boxing, MT, and submission style catch wrestling to what I do.
Now the following are some excerpts of a thread entitled “Wing Chun Sucks” from the kung fu forum. Forget the title for a moment and take a look at some of what was said - it’s a very interesting read.
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“Realistically though, if you compare it to Muay Thai…the style is too short, tight and subtle for the devasting onslaught of the Thai’s Smashing Elephant elbows. IMO, for WC/VT to win in a cage match you’d have to know how to fight in that venue and then you could pull out your subtle skills. I feel if a MT fighter studied WC/VT it would be very effective against someone else who just studied MT. Two champs both retire, one studies WC/VT and the other keeps on with the thai training…when they become old men this is where the chunners skills will come out…he knows all the tricks of the thai boxer so he uses his subtle lady like Gung Fu”
“you gotta know how to fight before you can fight with gung fu which is subtle…”
“wing chun/ving tsun hardly moves the shoulders which does nothing for power when wrestling…muay thai choy li fut hop ga really whip their shoulders giving them the dragon back which is the main stance for clinching…WC/VT doesn’t do this imo because it is advanced Gung Fu…you gotta be very skilled and very intelligent to use it against champions. It’s elite Gung Fu in theory!”
“.Whereas karate plays with all ranges of combat, wing chun deals with the range of refinement.”
“I guess my point is that if you have to learn another fighting system before you can make yours work, you’re doing it wrong. You shouldn’t need to practice Muay Thai in order to be an effective Wing Chun fighter. And I don’t think a style that can’t produce fighters on its own could possibly be considered more refined than one that works right away. Either WC works or it doesn’t…”
“In theory I agree, but the reality is they spend a year doing Sil Lim Tao before they spar from what I’ve read. I haven’t seen any Wing Chun fighters…Choy Li Fut walks through the horse and works on combos for the first year, it’s a scrapping style…Wing Chun is a fighting art…the whole not really moving the shoulders when punching is useless for a beginner, to apply that against a powerful opponent you’d need years of sensitivity training.”
“Imo, if you want to get good at Wing Chun, get good at MMA fighting and then learn the Art of Wing Chun. I feel the stance is incomplete on it’s own…”
“Wing Chun was my first martial art when I was very young. It does have benefits, but it also has one huge weakness. The strikes are simply not powerful enough. When we do Chi Sao, we train to trap the hands, get in close and elbow, punch, etc. But here’s the problem. What happens if your opponent is full of rage and adrenalin and one or two close range hits doesn’t drop him? That’s the reason why I learned Boxing and Choy Lay Fut. Those arts have KO punches using the torque of your body that will drop a guy. You will NOT be able to generate significant power from such a close range as in Wing Chun. You can do all the inch training you want to on wall bags, but it won’t really help you in a real fight. I must say though that if you combine the trapping of Wing Chun with a more powerful art, it’s very effective. Wing Chun by itself, sorry to say, does indeed suck.”
“Wing Chun was originally made up by people who had ALREADY mastered other styles. The took the what they thought were the best principles and made up wing chun. What many wing chunners forget is that these masters already had conditioned hands for grappling, considerable fighting experience, and tempered spirits from years of training. If you just train in wing chun you might be missing out on other elements.”
